U.S. Pat. No. 7,171,409, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference, discloses an information search and indexing method in which information is organized as a plurality of responses to possible queries. The collection of responses may be thought of as an information base. For each response in the information base, a Boolean expression that may be applied to possible queries searching for that response is formulated and stored. When a query is received, stored Boolean expressions for the multiple responses in the information base are applied to the query. Responses associated with the expressions that are wholly or partially satisfied by the query may be presented to an information seeker.
As disclosed in the '409 patent, each Boolean expression needs to be carefully formulated so that a query for an associated response satisfies the expression, without unnecessarily satisfying Boolean expressions associated with other responses.
In this way, and in contrast to conventional query and indexing methods, the actual contents of responses and the expected queries for these responses may be entirely independent.
Designing a collection of Boolean expressions for the plurality of responses is challenging. Each Boolean expression should only be satisfied by an expected queries for the response associated with the expression. The difficulty is compounded as new responses are added to an existing collection of responses.
Generally, the more responses that form part of the information base, the more difficult the formulation of new Boolean expressions becomes. Typically, Boolean expressions are formed manually, by skilled programmers or analysts. Unfortunately, so forming Boolean expressions is time consuming, and requires special skills and understanding in the formation of such expressions.
Accordingly, there remains a need to be able to improve the accuracy of the Boolean expressions and the returned responses.